We’ve been riding long enough now that we have a mental library of bike rides and terrains to compare rides to. Today’s ride on the Illinois and Michigan Canal Trail began much like Day 3, our ride down the Princeton towpath and the east coast greenway. The trail was wide, partly gravel and partly paved, and the surroundings were reminiscent of Trenton’s urban grit. We passed through Joliet, Illinois’ 4th biggest city, then ran parallel to the Illinois and Michigan Canal for the rest of the trip. The off-putting and ugly views of the first 25 miles gave way to C+O Canal-esque scenery for the next 40. We were surrounded on all sides by green, with some blue and purple and white flowers sprouting alongside the trail.
The trail was beautiful, but it wasn’t much of a bike trail. More of a clearing through the woods. At times the “path” was only a couple inches wide, and other times it was gravel, not even slightly crushed. Once we found our route blocked by a truck, which was chopping up a tree trunk that had fallen across the path. We later understood the need for the road block; 5 times we found our path blocked by a fallen tree trunk, and had to hop off the bike to carry it over. Another time we got fed up with how bumpy the trail was, so we hopped on the roads for another couple of miles. At another point the trail had been flooded, and a makeshift bridge constructed. We carefully wheeled our bikes across, one of us in front and the other in back; the bridge was only about 2 feet wide. Worst of all, gnats swarmed us for a majority of the ride. A few ended up in my eyes and mouth. Any of these obstacles alone would have been demoralizing if we were still in our first week of the trip. Now, obstacles don’t faze us. We are learning to go with the flow and adapt on the fly and it’s helping to keep our morale high throughout the day.
We were keeping tabs on the weather all day, having seen that there were thunderstorms projected for the afternoon and evening. As we got closer to our destination, we saw a weather advisory for thunderstorms in our area, with chances of winds reaching 40 mph and lightning in the area. We didn’t want to take any chances, so we pulled off into Buffalo Rock State Park. We hung out at a picnic table under a roof for about an hour, while it continued to drizzle around us. The rain never reached a rate higher than what I would call a “light rain”. So much for the torrential downpour we were promised. After a while we figured the worst had passed. It was 7pm and we still had 15 miles to go.
As a side note, today was the first day we began our ride not knowing where we would stay the night. We wanted flexibility to go as far as we could today, so we decided to play it by ear. About halfway into the ride we pegged a motel in Peru as a good target destination, but even in the last 15 miles we were considering stopping at a campsite for the night. We decided we wanted to shorten our ride tomorrow, so we continued on.
You know that saying “everybody wants happiness, nobody wants pain, but you can’t see a rainbow, without a little rain”? (First said by Mary Poppins?) We lived that saying today. After the rain cleared we were left with a brilliant sunset, lighting the clouds up orange and red and purple. Behind us a rainbow sprang up, completing the picture-perfect end to the day.
We rode the last 4 miles through Peru, IL in total darkness, our headlights illuminating the way. An old man greeted us at the Tourest Motel’s main office. He gave us the key to room 11 and his personal number and told us to have a good night. DoorDash brought us our Chipotle, we each showered, and now we’re watching the Lakers and Nuggets battle. Tomorrow will be one of our longest rides as we attempt to cross the entire state of Illinois in 2 days! Good night.
-Charlie